Der Reliefzyklus Medinaceli: Von Actium bis Nero

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This is the first exhaustive publication of the Medinaceli relief cycle. The 12 preserved reliefs and fragments, today housed in Córdoba, Seville and Budapest, can be grouped into three friezes on the basis of the depiction and direction of movement. These friezes adorned an unknown building in southern Italy, probably dedicated to the imperial cult. The stylistic and historical contextualisation suggests a date in Claudian times. Frieze B therefore shows the triumph of Claudius over Britain as a climax of imperial representation. In contrast, frieze C depicts the iconographically rarely attested pompa circensis, as shown by the tensa of Divus Augustus. Particularly in Claudian times, such a procession bears a strong dynastic character, given the presentation of the statues of divinized and other important persons, of which only Pompey as exemplary princeps and great naval victor is preserved. In addition, and borrowing from the famous Ravenna relief, Antonius - the second grandfather of Claudius - and Divus Iulius - who was the first to attempt a conquest of Britain - are shown alongside Divus Augustus and Diva Iulia. The occasion for this pompa circensis, celebrated in a special manner, was most likely the procession in A.D. 51, extensively described in Tacitus, during which Nero and Britannicus were promoted as Claudius' successors. Frieze A shows the naval battle of Actium fought between Claudius' grandfathers, Octavian and Antonius, which was poetically refracted in Virgil's 5th book of the Aeneis and which calls to mind the principate's origin myth under the protection of Apollo.